Failing Improvement programs
Statement 2
We have a company wide reliability improvement program running for years but with too little consistent improvement
That is a pity because these programs costs big money, so one might expect some positive results. Not only on short term but certainly on long term in a structural way. 45% of the participants were disappointed in this respect.
A lot of these programs have also positive effects but mostly in the area of quality not reliability and on short term.
Some companies also use QIC (Quality Improvement Competition), where teams compete for the best improvement. This is a more effective way but still costs a lot of money.
Each team (1 or more persons) item is judged on various aspects. One of them being money. I was part in two of such QIC teams and one made it to play the world final. Nevertheless something caused a bad feeling on this QIC. To exaggerate follow next scenario in order to be able to play in the world final.
- first make a bad product
- this costs lots of money in the field
- then solve the problem
- and propose the solution in the QIC
This solution is certainly a Quality Improvement in the way of cost savings. But realize that this solution is just a correction after the error. Prevention could have been much more efficient. An example:
- In a new product ball bearings are planned
- Since top-down decided they were not needed they were not implemented for cost saving reasons, which saved $25 thousand
- As a result service costs raised up to € 5 million.
- A design change solved all problems
- This change was the introduction of these ball bearings!
- But as a bonus we played the world final
The QIC by itself is a fantastic happening with a lot of good suggestions. The question was if previous problem could have been prevented. The answer is yes. With the proper tools. This was true for more presentations. All presentations dedicated to prevent failures to happen as far as possible didn't made it. Preventive measures costs money on forehand.
Of course one can not prevent all failures to happen, but at least one could try. It is a quest for failure modes. The ultimate challenge for development and reliability engineering to find the weak links before the customer find them. They will find them anyway. This quest does not always take place. There are companies who think you can test reliability. It depends on the complexity if you can. Then testing for unreliability is an option en easier to do.
Don't test how good the product might be but how bad it is. This gives better results in a shorter time
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